Three people died yesterday and several others were wounded during
shootings at a church and a missionary center in the U.S.
state of Colorado.
A black-clad gunman killed two staff members and wounded two
others after being turned away from the Youth with a Mission
by a missionary training center in suburban Arvada,
outside Denver.
The organization was founded in 1960 and has more than 1,000
branch offices in 149 countries, according to its Web site. The Arvada branch host dozens
of people from around the world training them as Christian missionaries.
The shooting happened about 12:30 a.m., according to
witnesses who said that a gunman in his 20s wearing a dark jacket and a dark
skullcap spoke to several members, asking to spend the night. After a 30-minute
discussion, he was turned away. When a staff member asked for help from others
to usher him out, he shot a woman and a man to death and wounded two other
staff members. One of them is in serious condition. The gunman disappeared into
the night being able to elude a massive search.
The other incidents happened almost 12 hours later in Colorado Springs, 70
miles away from the place of the first incident. A gunman invaded the grounds
of the New Life Church,
a 14,000-member institution founded by the Rev. Ted Haggard, fired last year
after a former male prostitute alleged he had a three-year cash-for-sex
relationship with him. Without being provoked, the gunman opened fire in a
parking lot and shot four people, one of them fatally. According to church
official, there were almost 7,000 worshipers inside the church when the
shooting started.
Richard Myers, Colorado
Springs chief of police, said that the gunman ran into
the 10,000-seat church after the shooting, being killed by an armed church
security guard, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
"What I experienced from my window was surreal. My heart
is broken today for the people who lost their lives," said the pastor of
the New Life Church,
the Rev. Brady Boyd at an evening news conference outside the church.
The police are investigating whether the two incidents are related, but Don
Wick, the Arvada
police chief, said he had reason to believe that the two incidents were
connected, though he did not comment why, the Associated Press reported.
Peter Warren, director of the training center in Arvada
revealed that Tiffany Johnson, 26, of Minnesota,
the director of hospitability for the training site had been killed, as well as
Philip Crouse, 24, of Alaska.
Two other men were seriously wounded, Charlie Blanch, 22, and Dan Griebenow,
24.
